The Latest from AgMag

The tirade that House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota recently delivered accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of sinking the corn-ethanol industry has many of us in the environmental community scratching our heads. Peterson accused federal officials of being "in bed with the oil companies" because their science-based analysis found that corn ethanol doesn't reduce greenhouse-gas emissions as much as the industry claims.

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

Letter sent by a coalition of environmental groups, including EWG, to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging that EPA not delay or significantly constrain consideration of indirect land use in the RFS rulemaking. Read the Letter

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

Subsidies

A coalition of environmental groups, including EWG, released a comprehensive biofuels platform highlighting new scientific evidence that indicates that biofuel production and use results in a net increase of greenhouse gas emissions when compared to petroleum-based fuels.

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

As Congress and the incoming Obama administration plan the nation’s next major investments in green energy, they need to take a hard, clear-eyed look at Department of Energy data documenting corn-based ethanol’s stranglehold on federal renewable energy tax credits and subsidies.

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

Growth Energy, a consortium of ethanol producers, petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to allow 50% more ethanol in gasoline than is currently permitted in a move designed to expand the market for corn ethanol. EWG's review of available scientific data finds that such an increase in fuel ethanol content may involve multiple human health and safety hazards, a risk of increased air pollution and potential engine damage.

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

Behind the thin green gloss Congressional leaders spread across the subsidy-laden 2008 farm bill, key Democratic lawmakers are hacking away at promises to expand conservation and other environmental programs. Without proper conservation funding, few resources are available to mitigate the environmental damage caused by modern commodity crop agriculture.

Key Issues: 

Subsidies

When the Bush administration and Congress required gasoline refiners to blend in 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol by 2015, they made the impossibly rosy assumption that American farmers would always enjoy good weather. But as every farmer knows, years with perfect growing conditions are uncommon and getting more rare.

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

EWG has developed this interactive map of the more than 450 pro-reform Farm Bill editorials published in the past year from across America. Few issues have garnered as much editorial page criticism of Congress, which by and large has acceded to the subsidy lobby’s preferences for unlimited taxpayer support for the largest commercial farming operations in the country.

Key Issues: 

Subsidies

Due to lax standards and implementation problems, USDA's conservation compliance program is missing cost-effective opportunities to make further, substantial reductions in cropland soil erosion and agriculture-related toxic run-off. Conservation compliance is critical to mitigating the damage agriculture related pollution does to streams, waterways and the Gulf of Mexico.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Environment